Why We Started Tech.pinions

June 13, 2012 marks the one-year anniversary of our site, Tech.pinions. In light of its anniversary, I thought I would share why we felt compelled to attempt something different within the public tech media forum, namely to start a website dedicated primarily to opinion editorial and long form columns.

One of the primary functions of my job as an industry analyst is to study the industry at large and attempt to make insightful observations about all of its happenings. Besides meeting with as many technology companies as my time allows, I find reading quite a bit of tech journalism to be helpful. The problem I found was that much online technology journalism is focused more on information than insight. Tech journalism at its best tells stories and covers informative facts and is genuinely more informative than insightful. There is nothing wrong with this model and I find it particularly helpful in my line of work.

However, what I desire to read is a wide range of informed and insightful opinions on key industry topics. What I have found in my 12 years as an analyst is that insightful perspectives in the form of opinion columns were much harder to find than informative content. I believe both have a role in shaping this industry’s future, and our goal with Tech.pinions is to provide a place where interested readers can find a wide range of opinions, that we hope share key insights and perspectives, on a wide range of subjects related to the technology industry.

Our goal is to accomplish this vision in a number of ways. The first is to be highly selective in the opinions we allow to be published. We seek out a wide range of opinions from individuals who have a history of credibility and a reputation in this industry. We seek out authors who are professional industry observers, experts in their field, company executives, and many other kinds of insightful individuals. The casual reader may not know who the author is, but oftentimes industry insiders will know the author. Because of this we found it important to include the bio of the author on every post so readers can easily see who the person is and what their background is. I personally find this very important when reading content on the Internet in order to know if the author is credible and should be trusted for their opinions, insights, and perspectives.

One other point on this first goal should be made clear. Opinions are not facts. The opinions we publish are based on expert experiences, insights, and data, but the point remains that opinions are just that–people’s opinions. Because of that we fully expect healthy and respectful disagreement from time to time. We only ask that the dialogue be respectful because in the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and most importantly, the beautiful thing about opinions is that they open the door to disagreement. We hold our writers to a high bar with their content and we intend to hold our commenters to a high bar as well. So when we disagree, let’s agree to disagree.

Secondly, our goal is insight and perspective, not breaking or reporting news. You will not come to Tech.pinions to find breaking or timely reporting of news. Rather you can come to Tech.pinions to find insightful perspective from trusted industry sources about the news or tech industry landscape. We may not cover every bit of news or industry angle, but what we do cover we hope to provide fresh and unique insights about.

Third, our content will come largely in the form of columns. I personally love reading longer form content from trusted industry sources. It is simply much harder to find a collection of this content since many outlets favor news over editorial. We strive to do the reverse and make editorials and columns our priority rather than trying to break news. Though we do from time to time comment on what others have written, you will find no regurgitating of other blogs’ content; rather all our content is 100% original.

Our mission will remain to provide original insights and fresh perspectives on all things related to tech. And we hope that more than anything, Tech.pinions is a contribution to the technology industry at large where intelligent conversations can live.

Ben Bajarin

Ben Bajarin is a Principal Analyst and the head of primary research at Creative Strategies, Inc - An industry analysis, market intelligence and research firm located in Silicon Valley. His primary focus is consumer technology and market trend research and he is responsible for studying over 30 countries. Full Bio

I completely agree with this post, I love to read editorials, too. That’s why added this site to my Google Reader. But honestly, the content on this website is quite unbalanced. Roughly 75 % (at least this is what I guess) of the articles are about Apple. It would be great if you could also cover Google, Microsoft etc. more frequently. Otherwise, great job, keep it going. 😉

benbajarin

Thanks, and its in the plan. Just so happens Apple is the one the industry revolves around right now. We hope that even the Apple content points out useful lessons that those who compete can glean insights from.

The industry has always had a leader, it was IBM then it was MSFT and right now it is Apple. Luckily Microsoft and Google have some interesting stuff ahead so expect more content there as well.

Read our posting guidelines. I offer you a second chance to offer something useful as a comment before deleting. If you think we don’t cover the other brands well enough, then explain why. Just make sure you have actually read what we have written about MSFt, GOOG, Intel, AMD, Amazon, Android, IBM, etc., etc.,

mhikl

“regurgitating of other blogs’ content”- not good. – So right. This seems to have become the usual so I have whittled down the number of sites I bother to read. Tech.Pinions has raised my expectations.

I agree with TonDwg that Tech.Pinions should be more than just an Apple site, which is what I have come to expect from this site for some time now. I am bored with the “Apple-Other is better” arguments which get in the way of honest discussion and learning. I have noticed, however, that some non-Apple sympathisers are coming to realise this and their discussion is less heated and more on relative point. Such is good.

The main point is that each article on Tech.Pinions has purpose other than that of space filler. That there are days when no new article is posted speaks to the point.

Rich

Ben, I have seen some really rude and nasty comments directed at Steve Wildstrom, bad enough that I was offended even though I wasn’t the target of the comments. I feel that stuff doesn’t belong here and I wish there was a way to filter it out, though I’m aware that may not be easy.

benbajarin

Only Steve and I are moderating comments at the moment. If you ping me I can do it. Which article are seeing those kinds of comments on?

I do what I can to stay on top of it but it gets tough with just Steve and I doing it. I will look for a setting that lets readers flag as inappropriate. I think there is a setting for that.

benbajarin

Ok, so let’s try this. I switched to the new disqus layout. If you mouse over the upper right of a comment you can select flag as inappropriate and it will alert me or Steve to moderate. It is dumb that this is not visible but if you use the mouse in the upper right corner you will see a – and down arrow appear. Click the down arrow to flag as inappropriate.

Hopefully this works. You can also vote comments down if they are bad.

steve_wildstrom

I’ve been putting up with rude and nasty comments since the days when they came in written on crayon on notebook paper. I think I’ve been accused a being paid off by every company on the planet. So it really doesn’t bother me. I still hope, though, that we can keep the discussion here civil.

nocompanyboy

why you started tech -pinions??? the answer is to say ‘Apple, Apple, Apple.. we don’t speak anything else.. we don’t like anything else..’ 🙂 you could easily counter attack for namesake but the volume of Apple only posts reveals that..